Monday, January 31, 2011

Innocent Bystanders Are Just As Guilty

For the past couple of days I've been following the story of a Limpopo school where teachers are accused of making 57 girls in their school pregnant. The youngest pregnant girl is said to be 13.

And while the story has now come out and the education department is making noises about disciplinary action ( which I hope will involve charging these teachers with statutory rape), I can't help but wonder how it was possible that teachers could make 57 students pregnant. I don't mean the mechanics of it - obviously I know about the birds and the bees.

I mean, one teacher abusing one girl can possibly be kept a secret. Maybe two teachers abusing 3 girls could even be a secret. But how do the numbers grow so high that 57 girls fall pregnant before action is taken?

Who knew that the girls were being abused? Other students? Other teachers not directly involved in the abuse? Parents of the girls who knew something was not right with their children? Community-members who didn't want to interfere? Why didn't they tell someone with greater authority, expose this abuse?

For me, the most horrifying thing is that this abuse went on for so long, on such a large scale, without someone reporting the crime to the proper authorities.

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